Breadcrumbs for the Visitor

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Ten Signs it's time to start writing my next novel:

10. I awoke to a heavy frost, the first sign of the coming cold. 9. Driving home yesterday, I noticed the birds were starting to form huge flocks, preparing to travel south for the winter.8. A few nights ago, I had a dream and Lucy Lawless* told me to me, "stop stalling".7. My football teams are struggling. Well the Green Bay Packers are doing okay, but only because their whole division is struggling.6. My deadline for The Stoughton Press is looming.5. I'm seeing quirks of my characters in the people in my everyday life.4. I've filled my notebook with character profiles, settings, rules of magic, plot structure, and I've even scribbled key chapters.3. My brain can no longer hold all the little details I have planned.2. I can already see the book cover in my head.And the number one sign it's time to start writing again ...1. My protagonist is so real to me, I feel like calling her to ask her to dinner.

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About Me

I believe we humans have lost our compassion, our empathy, our humanity. I also believe we can regain these vital emotions by exploring our ancient legends.

Our ancestors developed a rich mythology to explain natural phenomena, and to establish the mores of their culture, but modern humans have abandoned those myths because we knew better. However, in doing so, we lost something. So I have returned to the legends of the Norse, my ancestors. Trolls, Dragons, Fairies, and other fantastical beings inhabited their world. They were unquestionably real to the Vikings. But time passed and we rushed through the industrial revolution, world wars, the space age, and now the microprocessor age. We know better, but we have lost our connection to the natural world.

I've always felt like a misfit, adrift in a confusing society and misaligned with my friends, my family, my lover--everyone. Then it hit me: We All Feel Like a Misfit.

I returned to macro photography, a passion I had abandoned years earlier, but I had recently rediscovered. As I snapped photos of unique features on the forest floor, I began to imagine tiny, hidden, and misunderstood creatures still living as they always had, but we had forgotten them. Time had plodded on, and they too had changed, but they had never forgotten.

It's important that I place my characters on an unspoiled landscape. Like me, they are fascinated, grateful, and even a little fearful of the natural world. It's important that I remain respectful when I graft new limbs onto ancient legends. So if you feel lost or alone, a misfit in the sterile, modern world read the Legends of the Aurora to regain your humanity.